TIED SOULS , derek hale

14. manhunt

Gabby stammered for some kind of explanation as she turned back to the wolf, his brows were still raised at her, making her feel insane. Perhaps she was insane. Maybe Derek would think she was too once he had seen what had gotten her so twisted. Her only explanation was to show the man as she spun around the photo album, watching him flick through the endless streams of her old family photos from her teenage years and before. For all of the years her parents were alive. They were big fans of capturing the moment, he remembered that about them. They didn't miss a single moment. Not losing a tooth. Not a first day of school. Nothing, if they could help it.

He flicked through the images right until he reached the baby photos of her. Right now, it should have hit a soft spot, it should have pained him to see a child. Only, he had discovered a side that he didn't know he had until Melissa had told them about the news. The part no man knows they have until they become a father, or in his case until they find out they had been one for the past seven years.

His soft spot hadn't pained until he flicked to the final photo, one that had been carelessly put in the back until they had found it a proper, rightful place. A photo of Gabby smiling brightly as she held onto a small baby bump, glowing in the prime of her pregnancy. After that, he couldn't take anymore as he cleared his throat, sliding the album back to her. Knowing that he had missed the chance to be the one taking a photo like that, experiencing it all with her, preparing to become a father. He couldn't think about it.

"Where'd you get them?" He asked, trying to shove down the pained feeling inside of him as she slowly closed the photo album, deciding that she had wasted too much time torturing herself by digging through a past she couldn't get back.

"I just found it," she shrugged, keeping the details awfully vague. She saw how he looked at the photo of her, the less detail she provided him, the better. He was hurting enough, talking about it would only rub salt in the wound. "I-Uh... I told Allison that I would go and see her today. She got pretty knocked about too." Gabby quickly changed the subject as she walked to the dresser, searching for anything that she could throw on and leave as fast as possible.

"Wait, don't you think you should-" he tried to lecture her about taking it easy, but before he had even spat it out, he watched her try to jump into her jeans, tripping over the pant leg until a thud sounded from the collision of her ass on the concrete floor. "-take it easy..." he sighed. "Gab, I get that you've just had a big bomb dropped on you but-"

"I'm fine." Gabby interrupted him, pulling herself up and properly pulling up her jeans. "I made my peace with it a long time ago, Derek. I mourned her. She's alive, she always was, I get it, but she's not mine now. That's not my baby." she said, every word a lie, a scheme to ensure that the man didn't worry about her, or more importantly, follow her. Stood on her tiptoes to reach him, she cupped his face in her hands. "I'm fine, okay? I've moved on," she reassured him, falsely, her lips planting a kiss on his before she grabbed her jacket and headed out.

He stood watching the door, flabbergasted in her absence. Most of all, unconvinced of anything she had just told him. People didn't change that quickly. The Gabby he knew would never give up something so easily, especially not her child. Her own blood. Whatever she had just fed him had a bitter taste, the taste of lies. What she had told Melissa, the idea of finding their daughter was the real Gabby, not the one who just stood before him. He watched out of the window, the moment she had pulled away from the loft, he grabbed his jacket, prepared to follow her until he found out the reason behind her lies.

Gabriella's hand brushed against the old wallpaper as she wistfully walked through the corridor of her childhood home, envisioning every time she had run through them as a little girl, giggling as her father playfully chased them in a game of tag. Her heart ached while her lips smiled. This was a beautiful kind of pain. Grief was both cruel and lovely. Bitter yet sweet. She reminisced on the times she had spent with her parents, trying to keep them light and happy, not stung with the cruel stench of death. She would have done anything to spend another day with them, to go back in time and change all that had happened. If she did, she wouldn't be the woman who she was today, maybe that was good, maybe that was bad. Maybe this was exactly the way it was all supposed to happen.